Author Topic: Arrow Demon  (Read 5486 times)

Offline ~Corvus~

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Arrow Demon
« on: March 28, 2018, 06:54:40 PM »
Arrow Demon

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HD: d10

Level
Base
Attack Bonus
Fort
Save
Ref
Save
Will
Save

Special
Ability Score
Increase
1st+1+2+2+0Tanar'ri Body, Resistance, Arrow Works, Fiendish Archer, Symmetrical Archery (-2)+1 Dex
2nd+2+3+3+0Combat Archery, Uncanny Dodge, Summon Fiends +1 Str
3rd+3+3+3+1Arrows from Hell, Telepathy+1 Dex
4th+4+4+4+1Arrow Works (silver/cold iron/Adamantine), Symmetrical Archery (-1), Summon Fiends II+1 Str
5th+5+4+4+1Arrows from Hell, Dimension Door 1/day (objects only)+1 Dex
6th+6+5+5+2Spell Resistance, Volley, Summon Fiends III+1 Str
7th+7+5+5+2Arrows from Hell, Symmetrical Archery (-0), Oversized Weapons, Improved Summons+1 Dex, +1 Str
Skills: Balance (Dex), Bluff (Cha), Climb (Dex), Craft (Int), Concentration (Con), Forgery (Int), Hide (Dex), Intimidate (Cha), Jump (Str), Knowledge (Religion), Listen (Wis), Move Silently (Dex), Spot (Wis), Use Magic Device (Cha)
Skill Points equal to 6+Int skills (*4 at 1st level)

Tanar'ri Body:The Arrow Demon is an Outsider with the demon subtype. It gains the following:
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Updates:
12/3/19: Updated table to reflect changes in Dimension Door. Revised the ability to allow optional carry at 11th, and improves at 18.
12/4/19: Added Knowledge (Religion) to its skills & made it (loosely) required for summoning. Otherwise, the Arrow Demon won't know *what* it's summoning.
12/18/19: Removed summon list. Revised arrow-crafting options.
12/19/19
« Last Edit: December 19, 2019, 10:44:21 AM by ~Corvus~ »
Quote from: HuskyBoi
I just need a minute to appreciate the words 'goliath lamp-post sneak attack'. That's a thing of beauty, right there.

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Offline oslecamo

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Re: Arrow Demon
« Reply #1 on: March 29, 2018, 01:27:25 AM »
Righto first comments:
-All good saves and good Bab and all those weapon proficiencies is definitely too much, something needs to cut back.
-The image clearly has an almost naked dude. Why armor and shield proficiencies? It's not even default to non-homebrew outsiders.
-Natural Armor equal to HD isn't something I'm that big of a fan since it starts lower but then just keeps growing and growing.
-I would prefer if you keep closer to the demon classes already done like the Balor, like just resistance against poison instead of flat out immunity (at least at low levels), plus telepathy coming online a bit earlier.
-Arrow works is interesting, but as written still somewhat abuseable since anybody can use the arrows. With a bit of healing a single arrow demon can supply a small army with adamantine arrows which sounds a bit silly. Would suggest the arrow demon can simply create arrows out of nowhere when shooting, no need to even sacrifice HP for basic ammo, maybe sacrifice for fancier shots but either way only it can use them.
-Fiendish Archer could be read as adding your Dex to bow attacks twice which sounds a bit OP.
-Arrows from Hell is a nice touch, and if there's a good place to pay HP it should be here for that extra "hellish" touch, otherwise just seems standard archery stuff. Also Enchant needs an activation action. Pierce sounds kinda useless since DR/piercing would already be ignored and DR/slashing is kinda rare.
-Dimension door should either have a cooldown or /day or at least/hour limit.
-SR needs the "can be dropped at any time as a free action" clause.
-Seems to be missing the summoning. Would make for a nice capstone if telepathy starts earlier. For extra flavor, I would suggest either you can sacrifice dretches adjacent to a target for combat bonus (or maybe if an enemy kills a dretch you get a free symmetric shot against them), while summoning another Arrow Demon would allow you to use some kind of combo volley.

Offline ~Corvus~

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Re: Arrow Demon
« Reply #2 on: June 08, 2018, 11:03:14 PM »
Major updates. Ready for re-evaluation. I did most of the changes. Changes that were not made are addressed here:

-Arrows from Hell is a nice touch [...] otherwise just seems standard archery stuff.

There are few ranged characters on this board-section, and no Archers that I've found. So yes, it is meant to be neat archery stuff.

-Dimension door should either have a cooldown or /day or at least/hour limit.

The monster listing grants it uses at will. Besides being entirely true to design, it gains much-needed mobility, and note that it gains no flight-like ability; this ability will be useful and add a dangerous dimension to an otherwise excellent archer.
« Last Edit: June 08, 2018, 11:19:17 PM by ~Corvus~ »
Quote from: HuskyBoi
I just need a minute to appreciate the words 'goliath lamp-post sneak attack'. That's a thing of beauty, right there.

Greedling avatar by Ceika from Giantitp.

Offline oslecamo

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Re: Arrow Demon
« Reply #3 on: June 09, 2018, 01:10:47 AM »
Major updates. Ready for re-evaluation. I did most of the changes. Changes that were not made are addressed here:

As written right now, doesn't seem like Arrow Works allows you to get aligned cold iron/silver arrows.

-Arrows from Hell is a nice touch [...] otherwise just seems standard archery stuff.

There are few ranged characters on this board-section, and no Archers that I've found. So yes, it is meant to be neat archery stuff.
Well there's the Paragon then the forest giant and some fey like the Thorn and Pixie are good with bows but the Arrow Demon's supposed to be all about that that so fair enuff.

-Dimension door should either have a cooldown or /day or at least/hour limit.

The monster listing grants it uses at will. Besides being entirely true to design, it gains much-needed mobility, and note that it gains no flight-like ability; this ability will be useful and add a dangerous dimension to an otherwise excellent archer.

The original monster can't use it as swift/free action however, which alone makes an huge difference. Other problems related to being part of a party include:
-At 11 HD the Arrow Demon suddenly becomes the party's ferry.
-If it's a full ranged party, then the arrow Demon becomes a crazy mobility multiplier.
-If it's 2+ Arrow Demons, then the extra ones can ready/delay up their dimensional doors against enemy attacks to make an archery death ball that can never be reached.

Notice that Dimension Door has a whooping range of 400 feet+40 feet per level. That's greater mobility than the size of most battle maps, let alone the mobility of other creatures. Only enemies with at-will swift/free teleportation will have any hope to keep up, but if the arrow demon teams up with another arrow demon, then they basically have unbeatable mobility. In an archer specialist. Something needs to be cut down here. Either cooldowns, limited uses, no bringing allies or drastically reduced range so enemies lacking teleportation of their own have a chance to keep up.

EDIT: Also the Natural armor bonus is still a bit too high, very few monsters get 3+Con at first level and they're supposed to be tanks, this is supposed to be an archer. The custom summoning list looks nice. Also why the custom telepathy penalty of may be "heard" by creatures it can't detect? Also "may"? How does the DM determines if an hiding enemy can eavesdrop in that telepathy or not? Why not just good old regular telepathy? :psyduck
« Last Edit: June 09, 2018, 09:14:05 AM by oslecamo »

Offline RegalKain

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Re: Arrow Demon
« Reply #4 on: June 17, 2018, 03:48:03 PM »
Major updates. Ready for re-evaluation. I did most of the changes. Changes that were not made are addressed here:

As written right now, doesn't seem like Arrow Works allows you to get aligned cold iron/silver arrows.

-Arrows from Hell is a nice touch [...] otherwise just seems standard archery stuff.

There are few ranged characters on this board-section, and no Archers that I've found. So yes, it is meant to be neat archery stuff.
Well there's the Paragon then the forest giant and some fey like the Thorn and Pixie are good with bows but the Arrow Demon's supposed to be all about that that so fair enuff.

-Dimension door should either have a cooldown or /day or at least/hour limit.

The monster listing grants it uses at will. Besides being entirely true to design, it gains much-needed mobility, and note that it gains no flight-like ability; this ability will be useful and add a dangerous dimension to an otherwise excellent archer.

The original monster can't use it as swift/free action however, which alone makes an huge difference. Other problems related to being part of a party include:
-At 11 HD the Arrow Demon suddenly becomes the party's ferry.
-If it's a full ranged party, then the arrow Demon becomes a crazy mobility multiplier.
-If it's 2+ Arrow Demons, then the extra ones can ready/delay up their dimensional doors against enemy attacks to make an archery death ball that can never be reached.

Notice that Dimension Door has a whooping range of 400 feet+40 feet per level. That's greater mobility than the size of most battle maps, let alone the mobility of other creatures. Only enemies with at-will swift/free teleportation will have any hope to keep up, but if the arrow demon teams up with another arrow demon, then they basically have unbeatable mobility. In an archer specialist. Something needs to be cut down here. Either cooldowns, limited uses, no bringing allies or drastically reduced range so enemies lacking teleportation of their own have a chance to keep up.

EDIT: Also the Natural armor bonus is still a bit too high, very few monsters get 3+Con at first level and they're supposed to be tanks, this is supposed to be an archer. The custom summoning list looks nice. Also why the custom telepathy penalty of may be "heard" by creatures it can't detect? Also "may"? How does the DM determines if an hiding enemy can eavesdrop in that telepathy or not? Why not just good old regular telepathy? :psyduck

Uhhh, as I read the DImension Door ability it says 200 pounds of objects only? Wouldn't that immediately make it invalid to carry the party? Or anyone other then itself? Perhaps I'm mistaken though. If I were a DM and read the ability I'd say it only works on their own gear/belongings and only up to 200 pounds. Which is still quite handy, but not nearly as useful as it might otherwise be with either a heigher weigh limit, or the ability to transport living matter. It may have also been edited since your posting, but I dunno that either.

Edit: Maybe it was done after your post, since it seems that there is a daily limit on the swift/free action variants. I personally think the pound and object only is a strong stop on it.

Edit2: So reading through this I had a few questions myself.  This line under Symmetrical Archery "The arrow demon takes no additional penalties for using multiple weapons as long as it is using only bows.
At 4th level and again at 7th, this penalty decreases by 1." what happens if I gain 6 extra arms? I realize earlier in the description it says 2 bows, but maybe add a point of clarification here just in case a future DM reads this and has a player who has multiple sets of arms.

Also on multiple arms, the picture shows 4 arms, they can wield two bows. But I don't see anywhere in their description that actually states that they have 4 fully working and functional arms, is that intentional or is that an oversight of some kind?

I think a better clarification on Telepathy would be.

Telepathy (Su): At the apex of its growth, the Arrow Demon gains Telepathy out to 100'+10'/HD. Unlike normal telepathy, this ability only functions if the Arrow Demon can perceive the recipient through other means. (They must be able to see, or hear the target or otherwise know it is there.) However it can instead use it's telepathy over it's entire available range as a sort of broadcast, this simply allows it's thoughts to be heard by any creature in range, though the Arrow Demon cannot use this to determine if there is a creature in range.

I think that might fix the issues Oslec is having with it's wording, and it makes it clear cut without any questionable wording (Unless my own wording is confusing, though it reads fine to me.)

Enchant and Enhancement- Do these abilities stack in any way with an enchantment already on the bow? For instance can you have a +1 flaming bow, and use your enhancement from this class to add say Frost/Shocking or Keen or something else? Or does it overwrite the abilities on the bow?


All in all, I'm super excited to try to utilize this class. We're running an evil gestalt campaign and I was using a Centaur/Dvati for all my ranged goodness, but I think Arrow Demon/Dvati might produce more potent results! :D

Edit3: The Power ability, this reads a bit murky to me. To clarify, does this mean if you have a 12 Str (A +1 bonus) and have Power taken once, you get a +4 bonus from the bow? Or does it mean that you can treat the bow as though it had a +4 modifier on it, but you still need the 18 Str to utilize that bonus?
« Last Edit: June 17, 2018, 04:25:32 PM by RegalKain »

Offline oslecamo

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Re: Arrow Demon
« Reply #5 on: June 18, 2018, 08:59:36 AM »
Yeah, seems like Corvus updated it but didn't say anything (edited at 14 of June while my reply was in the 9th). The current dimension door version is much better and I don't have problems with it, so seems like just the strange telepathy wording needs some cleaning up.

Offline ~Corvus~

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Re: Arrow Demon
« Reply #6 on: June 18, 2018, 01:30:50 PM »
I appreciate your suggestions and questions. I don't like the idea of the pairing of Telepathy & Mindsight becoming a "within X feet, I automatically know if anything with a mind is present" which, in my opinion, necessitates the re-wording of Telepathy.

Edit2: So reading through this I had a few questions myself.  This line under Symmetrical Archery "The arrow demon takes no additional penalties for using multiple weapons as long as it is using only bows.
At 4th level and again at 7th, this penalty decreases by 1." what happens if I gain 6 extra arms? I realize earlier in the description it says 2 bows, but maybe add a point of clarification here just in case a future DM reads this and has a player who has multiple sets of arms.

Also on multiple arms, the picture shows 4 arms, they can wield two bows. But I don't see anywhere in their description that actually states that they have 4 fully working and functional arms, is that intentional or is that an oversight of some kind?

Good points and fixed. RAI, it should only gain a break for 2 bows.

Enchant and Enhancement- Do these abilities stack in any way with an enchantment already on the bow? For instance can you have a +1 flaming bow, and use your enhancement from this class to add say Frost/Shocking or Keen or something else? Or does it overwrite the abilities on the bow?
RAI, it's intended to overwrite and progress enchantments at a steady pace: "Arrows with an Enhancement bonus of +2 or higher may have part of the bonus from its arrows swapped for an equivalent enchantment."

Edit3: The Power ability, this reads a bit murky to me. To clarify, does this mean if you have a 12 Str (A +1 bonus) and have Power taken once, you get a +4 bonus from the bow? Or does it mean that you can treat the bow as though it had a +4 modifier on it, but you still need the 18 Str to utilize that bonus?
The Power enhancement ONLY increases the range of a Composite's bonus. This is intended to decrease the cost of modifying a bow (which can be hellish, if you know what I mean :lol
[/quote]
Quote from: HuskyBoi
I just need a minute to appreciate the words 'goliath lamp-post sneak attack'. That's a thing of beauty, right there.

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Offline RegalKain

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Re: Arrow Demon
« Reply #7 on: June 18, 2018, 07:37:02 PM »
Excellent, thanks so much for the responses, certainly looking forward to trying this out and building a character out of it! :D

 I certainly understand your concern with Telepathy as well, Mindsight or Lifesight if the DM allows are both kind of borked and make it rather difficult to "sneak up" on a party, short of "everything is a golem forever now go away."

Offline RegalKain

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Re: Arrow Demon
« Reply #8 on: June 19, 2018, 12:08:03 AM »
Curious about something. This line under Volley

Furthermore, all iterative attacks with a bow are made at a -5 attack penalty. Thus, at level 11, the Arrow Demon could make 7 attacks at (+11 | +11/+11/+6/+6/+(6)/+(6) ) BaB.

How is it getting the last two attacks? Normally you'd have 11/6/1, Volley changes this to 11/11/6/6, where are the last 2 attacks coming from? Since it explicitly states it doesn't stack with Symmetrical Archery?

Edit: Sorry I forgot I had already posted.
« Last Edit: June 19, 2018, 12:10:29 AM by RegalKain »

Offline ~Corvus~

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Re: Arrow Demon
« Reply #9 on: June 21, 2018, 07:33:49 PM »
Curious about something. This line under Volley

Furthermore, all iterative attacks with a bow are made at a -5 attack penalty. Thus, at level 11, the Arrow Demon could make 7 attacks at (+11 | +11/+11/+6/+6/+(6)/+(6) ) BaB.

How is it getting the last two attacks? Normally you'd have 11/6/1, Volley changes this to 11/11/6/6, where are the last 2 attacks coming from? Since it explicitly states it doesn't stack with Symmetrical Archery?

Edit: Sorry I forgot I had already posted.

Well, We need to re-examine these class abilities here!
Quote
Symmetrical Archery (Ex):The arrow demon, with its four arms, has an amazing ability to wield two bows at once and in unison. Any time the arrow demon could make a single attack action with a bow, it can instead attack with both of its bows.

I'm taking a full attack at level 11 with (for the sake of this example) 11 BaB, which grants an attack routine of 11/6/1.
Symmetrical archery makes this 11/11/6/6/1/1.

Volley does something even cooler. It adds +1 attack at the highest BaB of this routine and makes all iterative attacks at a -5. Thus we get
11 (volley bonus) | 11/11/6/6/(6)/(6)

I noted that Volley and Symmetrical archery don't stack (Volley adds on 1 attack), so that you can't use these abilities to chain a series of infinite attacks. Hopefully that adds some clarity.

« Last Edit: June 21, 2018, 07:35:37 PM by ~Corvus~ »
Quote from: HuskyBoi
I just need a minute to appreciate the words 'goliath lamp-post sneak attack'. That's a thing of beauty, right there.

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Offline oslecamo

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Re: Arrow Demon
« Reply #10 on: June 21, 2018, 10:20:46 PM »
Some other details:
-Why SR equal to 12+HD? The standard is 11+HD and the original monster even has SR 18 for CR 7.
-Why do the claws grant a bonus to grapple checks? That one seems really out of place. :psyduck

Offline ~Corvus~

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Re: Arrow Demon
« Reply #11 on: June 28, 2018, 07:17:02 PM »
The original demon has a high-30s constitution but it didn't seem entirely fitting to give that again. So I went with some higher Natural Armor and some higher SR. How would you better-represent high HP without making it absurdly high in Con?maybe give it a d12 HD??

Grapple seemed good to resist anothers attempts to wrestle a bow away.
Quote from: HuskyBoi
I just need a minute to appreciate the words 'goliath lamp-post sneak attack'. That's a thing of beauty, right there.

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Offline oslecamo

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Re: Arrow Demon
« Reply #12 on: June 28, 2018, 07:36:37 PM »
The closest thing to wrestling a bow in the rules would be a disarm. And even if it gets grappled it can just dimension door away.

Also I had forgot about the inflated natural armor and it still is bad. Inflated ability scores and making monsters giant sacks of hit points is bad. It was plain boring power creep as the monster books went on. And one of the basic rules here is precisely cutting back those base numbers.

Again look at the other fiends done in this project. Why should the arrow demon be the toughest of them all?

Offline ~Corvus~

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Re: Arrow Demon
« Reply #13 on: July 18, 2018, 05:48:51 PM »
Should be ready to go!
Quote from: HuskyBoi
I just need a minute to appreciate the words 'goliath lamp-post sneak attack'. That's a thing of beauty, right there.

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Offline oslecamo

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Re: Arrow Demon
« Reply #14 on: July 19, 2018, 12:32:01 AM »
Added to the index. :)